The Prelude
By
William Wordsworth
Book 7:
Residence in London

Add to these exhibitions, mute and still,Others of wider scope, where living men,Music, and shifting pantomimic scenes,Diversified the allurement. Need I fearTo mention by its name, as in degree,Lowest of these and humblest in attempt,Yet richly graced with honours of her own,Half-rural Sadler's Wells? Though at that timeIntolerant, as is the way of youthUnless itself be pleased, here more than onceTaking my seat, I saw (nor blush to add,With ample recompense) giants and dwarfs,Clowns, conjurors, posture-masters, harlequins,Amid the uproar of the rabblement,Perform their feats. Nor was it mean delightTo watch crude Nature work in untaught minds;To note the laws and progress of belief;Though obstinate on this way, yet on thatHow willingly we travel, and how far!To have, for instance, brought upon the sceneThe champion, Jack the Giant-killer: Lo!He dons his coat of darkness; on the stageWalks, and achieves his wonders, from the eyeOf living Mortal covert, "as the moonHid in her vacant interlunar cave." Delusion bold! and how can it be wrought?The garb he wears is black as death, the word"_Invisible_" flames forth upon his chest.

Here, too, were "forms and pressures of the time," Rough, bold, as Grecian comedy displayedWhen Art was young; dramas of living men,And recent things yet warm with life; a sea-fight,Shipwreck, or some domestic incidentDivulged by Truth and magnified by Fame,Such as the daring brotherhood of lateSet forth, too serious theme for that light place — 295I mean, O distant Friend! a story drawnFrom our own ground, — the Maid of Buttermere, — And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wifeDeserted and deceived, the spoiler cameAnd wooed the artless daughter of the hills,And wedded her, in cruel mockeryOf love and marriage bonds. These words to theeMust needs bring back the moment when we first,Ere the broad world rang with the maiden's name,Beheld her serving at the cottage inn,Both stricken, as she entered or withdrew,With admiration of her modest mienAnd carriage, marked by unexampled grace.We since that time not unfamiliarlyHave seen her, — her discretion have observed,Her just opinions, delicate reserve,Her patience, and humility of mindUnspoiled by commendation and the excessOf public notice — an offensive lightTo a meek spirit suffering inwardly.

From this memorial tribute to my themeI was returning, when, with sundry formsCommingled — shapes which met me in the wayThat we must tread — thy image rose again,Maiden of Buttermere! She lives in peaceUpon the spot where she was born and reared;Without contamination doth she liveIn quietness, without anxiety:Beside the mountain chapel, sleeps in earthHer new-born infant, fearless as a lambThat, thither driven from some unsheltered place,Rests underneath the little rock-like pileWhen storms are raging. Happy are they both —Mother and child! — These feelings, in themselvesTrite, do yet scarcely seem so when I thinkOn those ingenuous moments of our youthEre we have learnt by use to slight the crimesAnd sorrows of the world. Those simple daysAre now my theme; and, foremost of the scenes,Which yet survive in memory, appearsOne, at whose centre sate a lovely Boy,A sportive infant, who, for six months' space,Not more, had been of age to deal aboutArticulate prattle — Child as beautifulAs ever clung around a mother's neck,Or father fondly gazed upon with pride.There, too, conspicuous for stature tallAnd large dark eyes, beside her infant stoodThe mother; but, upon her cheeks diffused,False tints too well accorded with the glareFrom play-house lustres thrown without reserveOn every object near. The Boy had beenThe pride and pleasure of all lookers-onIn whatsoever place, but seemed in thisA sort of alien scattered from the clouds.Of lusty vigour, more than infantineHe was in limb, in cheek a summer roseJust three parts blown — a cottage-child — if e'er,By cottage-door on breezy mountain side,Or in some sheltering vale, was seen a babeBy Nature's gifts so favoured. Upon a boardDecked with refreshments had this child been placed,_His_ little stage in the vast theatre,And there he sate surrounded with a throngOf chance spectators, chiefly dissolute menAnd shameless women, treated and caressed;Ate, drank, and with the fruit and glasses played,While oaths and laughter and indecent speechWere rife about him as the songs of birdsContending after showers. The mother nowIs fading out of memory, but I seeThe lovely Boy as I beheld him thenAmong the wretched and the falsely gay,Like one of those who walked with hair unsingedAmid the fiery furnace. Charms and spellsMuttered on black and spiteful instigationHave stopped, as some believe, the kindliest growths.Ah, with how different spirit might a prayerHave been preferred, that this fair creature, checkedBy special privilege of Nature's love,Should in his childhood be detained for ever!But with its universal freight the tideHath rolled along, and this bright innocent,Mary! may now have lived till he could lookWith envy on thy nameless babe that sleeps,Beside the mountain chapel, undisturbed.

Four rapid years had scarcely then been told Since, travelling southward from our pastoral hills,I heard, and for the first time in my life,The voice of woman utter blasphemy — 385Saw woman as she is, to open shameAbandoned, and the pride of public vice;I shuddered, for a barrier seemed at onceThrown in, that from humanity divorcedHumanity, splitting the race of manIn twain, yet leaving the same outward form.Distress of mind ensued upon the sightAnd ardent meditation. Later yearsBrought to such spectacle a milder sadness.Feelings of pure commiseration, griefFor the individual and the overthrowOf her soul's beauty; farther I was thenBut seldom led, or wished to go; in truthThe sorrow of the passion stopped me there.

But let me now, less moved, in order takeOur argument. Enough is said to showHow casual incidents of real life,Observed where pastime only had been sought,Outweighed, or put to flight, the set eventsAnd measured passions of the stage, albeitBy Siddons trod in the fulness of her power.Yet was the theatre my dear delight;The very gilding, lamps and painted scrolls,And all the mean upholstery of the place,Wanted not animation, when the tideOf pleasure ebbed but to return as fastWith the ever-shifting figures of the scene,Solemn or gay: whether some beauteous dameAdvanced in radiance through a deep recessOf thick entangled forest, like the moonOpening the clouds; or sovereign king, announcedWith flourishing trumpet, came in full-blown stateOf the world's greatness, winding round with trainOf courtiers, banners, and a length of guards;Or captive led in abject weeds, and jinglingHis slender manacles; or romping girlBounced, leapt, and pawed the air; or mumbling sire,A scare-crow pattern of old age dressed upIn all the tatters of infirmityAll loosely put together, hobbled in,Stumping upon a cane with which he smites,From time to time, the solid boards, and makes themPrate somewhat loudly of the whereabout Of one so overloaded with his years.But what of this! the laugh, the grin, grimace,The antics striving to outstrip each other,Were all received, the least of them not lost,With an unmeasured welcome. Through the night,Between the show, and many-headed massOf the spectators, and each several nookFilled with its fray or brawl, how eagerlyAnd with what flashes, as it were, the mindTurned this way — that way! sportive and alertAnd watchful, as a kitten when at play,While winds are eddying round her, among strawsAnd rustling leaves. Enchanting age and sweet!Romantic almost, looked at through a space,How small, of intervening years! For then,Though surely no mean progress had been madeIn meditations holy and sublime,Yet something of a girlish child-like glossOf novelty survived for scenes like these;Enjoyment haply handed down from timesWhen at a country-playhouse, some rude barnTricked out for that proud use, if I perchanceCaught, on a summer evening through a chinkIn the old wall, an unexpected glimpseOf daylight, the bare thought of where I wasGladdened me more than if I had been ledInto a dazzling cavern of romance,Crowded with Genii busy among worksNot to be looked at by the common sun.

The matter that detains us now may seem,To many, neither dignified enoughNor arduous, yet will not be scorned by them,Who, looking inward, have observed the tiesThat bind the perishable hours of lifeEach to the other, and the curious propsBy which the world of memory and thoughtExists and is sustained. More lofty themes,Such as at least do wear a prouder face,Solicit our regard; but when I thinkOf these, I feel the imaginative powerLanguish within me; even then it slept,When, pressed by tragic sufferings, the heartWas more than full; amid my sobs and tearsIt slept, even in the pregnant season of youth.For though I was most passionately movedAnd yielded to all changes of the sceneWith an obsequious promptness, yet the stormPassed not beyond the suburbs of the mind;Save when realities of act and mien,The incarnation of the spirits that moveIn harmony amid the Poet's world,Rose to ideal grandeur, or, called forthBy power of contrast, made me recognise,As at a glance, the things which I had shaped,And yet not shaped, had seen and scarcely seen,When, having closed the mighty Shakespeare's page,I mused, and thought, and felt, in solitude.

Pass we from entertainments, that are suchProfessedly, to others titled higher,Yet, in the estimate of youth at least,More near akin to those than names imply, —I mean the brawls of lawyers in their courtsBefore the ermined judge, or that great stage Where senators, tongue-favoured men, perform,Admired and envied. Oh! the beating heart,When one among the prime of these rose up, —One, of whose name from childhood we had heardFamiliarly, a household term, like those,The Bedfords, Glosters, Salsburys, of oldWhom the fifth Harry talks of. Silence! hush!This is no trifler, no short-flighted wit,No stammerer of a minute, painfullyDelivered. No! the Orator hath yokedThe Hours, like young Aurora, to his car:Thrice welcome Presence! how can patience e'erGrow weary of attending on a trackThat kindles with such glory! All are charmed,Astonished; like a hero in romance,He winds away his never-ending horn;Words follow words, sense seems to follow sense:What memory and what logic! till the strainTranscendent, superhuman as it seemed,Grows tedious even in a young man's ear.

Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seducedBy specious wonders, and too slow to tellOf what the ingenuous, what bewildered men,Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides,And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught,Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue —Now mute, for ever mute in the cold grave.I see him, — old, but Vigorous in age, —Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches startOut of its leafy brow, the more to aweThe younger brethren of the grove. But some —While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,Against all systems built on abstract rights,Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaimsOf Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time;Declares the vital power of social tiesEndeared by Custom; and with high disdain,Exploding upstart Theory, insistsUpon the allegiance to which men are born — 530Some — say at once a froward multitude —Murmur (for truth is hated, where not loved)As the winds fret within the AEolian cave,Galled by their monarch's chain. The times were bigWith ominous change, which, night by night, provokedKeen struggles, and black clouds of passion raised;But memorable moments intervened,When Wisdom, like the Goddess from Jove's brain,Broke forth in armour of resplendent words,Startling the Synod. Could a youth, and oneIn ancient story versed, whose breast had heavedUnder the weight of classic eloquence,Sit, see, and hear, unthankful, uninspired?